Parable
by The Great and Powerful Keski
Summary: In this prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Finality, the structure of time itself is destroyed and must be rebuilt, in the midst of a threeway battle of gods, before the whole of existence comes to a close. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

Parable

—A 'Fable' Fanfic—

- - -

Chapter I

- - -

Author's Note: I found the word "whingeing" in my

computer's thesaurus. It's a real word that I just

learned. Go ahead, look up "whinge"!

My computer says "unfrightened" and

"unalarmed" are not words. That makes me unhappy.

- - -

"I never asked for this!" I brought my fist down upon the table, rattling the dishes on it. Defeated, I propped my elbows on the table and ran my hands through my hair. "I never asked for any of this…"

"You may not have asked for it, but you did invite it," Satiyen said.

"No, I—" I stopped myself. "I never meant for this to happen," I finished lamely.

Satiyen snorted. He leant back in his chair. "Nobody ever moved into the future by whining about the past."

"All I want is to see her again," I murmured. "Just to tell her that—that I'm sorry."

Satiyen looked at me sharply. "Did you not hear what I just said, boy? Kan'i is gone, and sooner or later, you'll have to come to terms with that. But until you do, I don't want you to come whingeing to me about it!"

'Boy'. I almost laughed. If only he knew how old I really was…

I grabbed the mug before me and took a long draught of the liquid inside.

"That boy," Satiyen murmured to himself, eyes toward the tavern entrance.

"What's that?" I said, following his gaze. Through the entrance, I could see a boy outside. He was brown-haired. He had very large feet, but was otherwise unremarkable. He was facing sideways from our perspective for a moment, but then he ran off. "What about him?" I asked.

Satiyen shrugged. "There's something about that boy, but I'm not yet sure what it is."

I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head inquiringly. "What do you mean? He doesn't seem like anything special at first glance."

"At first glance, no," Satiyen said. "But then, you've never been very good with the Will, now, have you?"

"You mean it's magical?"

Satiyen shook his head. "No, but my prowess with the Will gives me a bit of a sixth sense, and it itches like mad whenever that boy is around."

I pushed my chair back and stood up. "As far as our earlier conversation goes," I said, "I _will_ find a way back to Hyrule, Satiyen. Sooner or later, I'll find whatever strange path leads to the place, and I'll go back."

"You do that," Satiyen said. "You do that, and good luck to you. I hope you find your way back to Hyrule. With any luck, you'll decide to stay there, so you won't be able to cry on my shoulder anymore."

I smiled wryly. "Ha, ha. I'm serious."

"Ha, ha. So am I. Did you stand up to leave, or just to be dramatic?"

I waved at him dismissively, and started for the doorway. I paused halfway there, though, as a disturbing instinct took hold. Cautiously, I loosened my blade in its sheath, and looked back at Satiyen. He'd become nervous as well. He was staring to the doorway, and even as inept as I was with the Will, I could feel the magical energy gathering around him.

Nobody else in the tavern had noticed anything. I hoped this would mean that it was nothing. I knew it wouldn't.

I looked back to the door, and slowly approached it, staying out of a direct line of sight from the street.

"Bandits!"

As soon as I heard the faint, distant cry, I leapt for the doorway, slamming my back against it. I peered around the edge of the doorframe. I couldn't see anything, but I kept watching—there, up the road, a group of unfamiliar men, waving their swords in the air and running this way.

Some of the swords already had blood on them.

"Bandits!" I repeated the call, since no one in the tavern seemed to have noticed. "Everybody stay in here, and keep your heads down! Don't panic!"

They didn't seem to hear my second and third announcements, though, since several people ran screaming out the door (only to be promptly skewered on crossbow bolts and arrows), and almost none of them kept their heads down. Satiyen was beside me in an instant.

"Rule one of avoiding a large-scale panic," Satiyen hissed, "_never_ tell people not to panic!"

"Sorry," I said. "What do we do?"

"I don't know," he said. "I've a bad feeling about this."

"_How_ bad of a feeling?" I snapped. "I had damned well better survive this!" I peered around the doorframe again. The bandits had split up and some were entering buildings. It would only be a matter of time before they came into this one. "What do we do now?" I asked.

Satiyen grabbed my hand. I felt a tingling sensation throughout my body, and then he pulled me out into the street. I ran along behind him, scared out of my mind.

"You idiot!" I cried. "We're going to be—"

"Shut up," he said. "You've got a physical shield around you; they can't touch you as long as I maintain the shield. Now, come on, don't lag behind, boy!"

I looked around as we moved. Two bandits noticed us and shot arrows at us, but didn't even wait to see if the shots connected before moving on. The first arrow bounced off as cleanly as if I'd been wearing armour. The second slowed strangely as it approached Satiyen, then dropped listlessly to the ground. We kept moving.

"Where are we going?" I said then.

"We're going to that boy's house. I'm positive he's got something to do with this." He didn't look back.

"That boy—Satiyen, why don't we just get out of here?" I looked back. There wasn't anybody following us. Ahead, I saw several houses. He pulled me to the last one on the left side of the road. We stopped some distance back. A handful of bandits were just now approaching it. One smashed in the door. I heard a woman scream, and the bandits flooded the place. I moved toward the house, but Satiyen pulled me back.

"Don't," he cautioned. "They'll kill you. This isn't just an unsystematic raid."

"But, Satiyen—" He released me and stared coldly down at me.

"Luseik," he said flatly, "if you want to go and get yourself slaughtered, I won't stop you. But I can promise you that you will not be able to take on those bandits alone."

"Then help me."

"I wouldn't even risk that much. I'd be willing to bet that they've got a few tricks up their sleeves. It won't help anybody if we go and get ourselves killed."

There was another scream from inside the house. I stared at the house and shook my head.

"There's got to be something we can do," I said.

"We can find that boy. He's at the centre of this story. I'm sure of it."

"I wish you could be more than sure of it," I replied, looking back to the house. I heard the angry shouts of the bandits, and another female scream.

Satiyen took my hand again. "Let's go," he said. "We can't do anything here." Oakvale began to shimmer and shift, and then the world went away.

- - -

When the world returned, I stood in a cold village, on a stone pathway. Satiyen was gone. This was my first indication that something was wrong. The second indication was that I saw no people in this village, though by the light, it seemed to be midday. As I walked down the pathway into the village, I received confirmation of my suspicions when the world darkened around me.

_Who… are you?_

I spun round and peered about, but saw nothing save the buildings and the street.

"I'm Luseik," I said. "Who are you?"

_I know that name. You cannot be Luseik._

"What do you mean?" I called, staring around. "I don't know who the Luseik is that you know, but that's my name."

_Luseik was a god. You are no god. You are but a mortal man._

"I never professed to be anything but a man," I said indignantly. "I didn't say I was a god. I just told you my name."

_And yet_, the strange voice continued, seeming to ignore what I had said, _you do feel like him. Perhaps the Creator has done something without informing me._

"Fine, whatever," I said, my patience thinning. "Just let me get back to the real world."

_I shall ask the Creator what you are. Be warned, imitator of Luseik—_

"I'm not imitating anybody."

_—that it is dangerous for a mortal to wear the skin of a god. You, of anyone, should know this._

"What are you talking about? Piss off, will you? Leave me alone."

There was a blinding flash of light and a sudden thunderous crash, and I found myself on my knees, panting on the quiet village street. I saw a woman walking down the street away from me, and a blue-garbed guard staring at me as if I were some sort of demon—but then, I had, most likely, just materialized out of thin air, so perhaps his astonishment was warranted. I got to my feet. Satiyen was still nowhere nearby. As I stared about myself, I saw the blue glow of a Cullis Gate up the road a ways. I headed for it. Off to my left, there was an unimpressive building bearing the mark of a blacksmith's shop. The sign hanging out front read "Hook Coast Blacksmith", but I had never heard of Hook Coast, so it didn't help much. I continued to the Cullis Gate.

Stepping atop the glowing stone, I felt its power wash over and through me. For an instant, I thought of returning to Oakvale, but I wasn't sure if it would be safe. I didn't know how much time had passed. For all I knew, the bandits might still be there, might still be ravaging the place. I fingered the hilt of my short sword, sheathed as it was at my waist, and made my decision. I willed the Cullis Gate to send me back to Oakvale. Hook Coast began to shimmer and shift, and then the world went away.

I found myself, quite abruptly, standing in the Oakvale Cullis Gate. I loosened my blade in its sheath and ran toward the village, but stopped in my tracks.

There were no bandits.

There were no damaged buildings.

And there were villagers walking about, unscathed and unworried.

How much time _had_ passed since the raid?


	2. Chapter 2

Parable

—A 'Fable' Fanfic—

- - -

Chapter II

- - -

_Running, running, ever running. I can't stop, for if I do, surely I'll be killed. Massive rocks, or meteorites, or—something—they keep falling from the sky, all around me. I can only pray that I am not hit by any of them. My friends, they lay dying everywhere. Now everyone I've ever known is dead, everyone but—_

_"Kan'i," I breathe as I spot her, staring at me. I run toward her. She turns away from me. One of the rocks smashes into the earth just to my left, shaking the ground, but I don't stop. Another lands just before me, exploding at it collides with the dirt. I run through the dust cloud it creates, never once forgetting what I run to._

_But when I emerge from the cloud, Kan'i is gone. I look for her as the meteorites continue to fall around me, but to no avail. She is gone._

_"Kan'i!" I shout desperately, running to nowhere. "Kan'i!"_

_"You will never find her. You shouldn't care. You abandoned her, after all."_

_I spin around to see the last thing I expected—a small, blue faerie, hovering at my eye level and snickering at me._

_"I did not abandon her," I say coldly._

_"Yes, you did. She offered to accompany you. You turned her down. You left her, even though you knew that Hyrule was lost."_

_"I meant to come back!" I shout. "I meant to return for her! The path was supposed to be there when I went back!"_

_"Don't act like you haven't realized what happened," the faerie sneers. "You always knew Hyrule was a magical place. To leave Hyrule is to leave the magic behind!"_

_I raise my fist. "Albion has magic too."_

_The faerie rolls her tiny, black eyes._

_"Trying to argue logic won't change what is already past," the faerie mutters._

_"Shut up," I say. "Just shut up! I will find my way back to Hyrule, and I will find her."_

_"You haven't even recognized the nature of your own power, and yet you seek to return to a land that is closed to you! You are naught but a fool, Luseik, and until you realize that much, you will not find what you seek!"_

_And now the dream fades, leaving only her cruel laughter behind._

- - -

Before anything else, I knew that I had to find Satiyen. I hadn't seen him since we'd left Oakvale together, and it had been—to the best of my knowledge—a day since we'd parted. I'd spent the night in Oakvale, plagued by nightmares, and now I sat in the tavern, staring lethargically at the far wall as I swallowed the tasteless sandwich before me. To another, I might have seemed half-asleep. My mind, though, was racing.

After finishing my sandwich, I left a few coins on the table and departed the tavern to look over the town of Oakvale.

The village was untouched—or so it seemed. After a bit of exploring, I found an odd memorial garden that I had never seen before. While surveying the garden, I saw several cenotaphs marking the garden as commemorating the 'terrible bandit raid' of years ago.

Years? It wasn't possible. Or so I would like to think.

But if it had truly been years, what had I been doing all that time? Sleeping in suspended animation? Or had I simply been catapulted forward through time? That seemed unlikely, given what I knew about how the Will worked. I didn't know much about the Will, but I did know that spells didn't just 'malfunction'. They either worked or they didn't do anything. It wasn't possible to 'accidentally' cast the wrong spell. And besides, I didn't remember Satiyen ever telling me about any sort of time-travelling spell to begin with.

_…wasn't the Will…_

I spun around to face the garden's entrance, but as I'd half-expected, there was nobody in sight.

"Then what was it?" I said recklessly. "And if you're the same freak that I talked to at Hook Coast, you'd better just clear out now, because I'm not playing your stupid game."

There was no response. I growled softly to myself, turning back to the main garden. I'd had about enough of these disembodied voices. I had things I needed to be doing.

Which raised a _very_ important question: What was I supposed to do now?

_'We can find that boy,'_ Satiyen had said. _'He's at the centre of this story. I'm sure of it.'_

That was all well and good, but where was I supposed to look? Obviously, the boy didn't still live in the same house. It had been years, and besides that, I hadn't forgotten what I had seen and heard from outside his house…

Moreover, I didn't even remember anything about the boy. Well, aside from his huge feet.

_…Guild…_

I frowned.

"You'd better hope I imagined that," I said irritably.

_…Heroes' Guild…_

I opened my mouth to retort, but stopped myself. The Heroes' Guild? That sounded like a suggestion of a place to search. Hopefully the Heroes' Guild was still around—but then, surely it hadn't been so long since the raid that the Guild had crumbled. Perhaps this disembodied voice wasn't such a nuisance after all. In any case, it was a lead of sorts. I turned and left the garden.

"Satiyen, you had better be right about that boy."

- - -

"You want to join the Guild?"

"Ah, no, just looking for—That is to say," I corrected myself, "I'd like to speak with the Guildmaster. Maze still runs the place, right?" I figured I'd have a better chance of getting in with that line, as opposed to telling the truth—that I was looking for someone whose name I didn't know, but whom I was hoping I'd recognize.

The guard nodded. "Yes. Do you know him?"

"Yes," I said truthfully. Maze was—had been?—a friend of mine. Satiyen had never liked the man, but would never tell me why. In retrospect, I wondered if it was his 'sixth sense' that caused him to dislike Maze. "He was a friend of mine a few years back. I'm hoping he'll remember me."

"All right," the guard said. "Go on in. I assume you know your way around the Guild?"

"Of course," I said. He reached back and undid the latch on the door. I took it upon myself to push the door open.

Once inside, I headed straight for the Guildmaster's quarters. Peering around the doorframe, I saw that he was not present. I entered the room anyway. Sooner or later, he'd come here, wherever he was.

In the interim, I walked over to one of the many bookshelves—Maze, apparently, still held his same fondness for books. I fingered through several of them, finding nothing interesting, and replaced all of them where I'd found them. As I was replacing the sixth and last book, I heard a familiar voice.

"May I help you?"

I pushed the book into place and turned around. I noticed that he looked peculiarly flushed, but perhaps it was only age.

"Maze," I said. "Do you remember me? I haven't seen you in a handful of years."

He narrowed his eyes briefly, then widened them. "Luseik," he said.

I grinned. "You do remember me," I said.

"Where have you been?" he said, and I paused. How was I supposed to know where I'd been?

"Er, away," I said. "Listen, I'm looking for someone. He was a boy when last I saw him, but he must be a young man by now. He used to live in Oakvale, before the raid."

"That boy?" Maze said. "How curious."

"What do you mean?" I said, mildly startled.

"Nothing much," he said. "It's simply curious that he should have so much happening around him." This struck me as odd, but he continued before I could ask. "If you wish to see him, though, you'll be disappointed. He isn't here at the moment. Unfortunately, I can't stay long. I have duties I must attend to."

"That's all right," I said. "I'll look for him elsewhere."

He shrugged. "I wish you luck in finding him." Something about the way he said it was unusual. As if he thought I had no hope of finding the boy.

I nodded. He left.

So what now? I wasn't about to go on a wild goose chase all over Albion just to find a boy that Satiyen had had a hunch about years ago. I walked to Maze's desk and let myself fall into his chair. I pondered for almost an hour.

I got up to leave, and was about halfway to the Guild entrance when I was forced to stop and stare about me.

The Guild… was burning.

Or was it?

Phantom flames devoured the place, but left it untouched. None of the other people seemed to noticed the phenomenon. The flames didn't seem to be there, and yet I could see them as clearly as if they were.

And now I could see people, translucent people, running this way and that, many of them bleeding, some of them burning, all of them terrified.

And abruptly, it was gone. I shook my head.

_…he comes…_

I closed my eyes and pushed the heel of my right hand to my forehead.

_…get away from this place…_

"Stop it," I muttered. "Not now. Not here."

_…you must leave…_

"But you're the one who led me here!" I said, careful to keep my voice down as I continued to walk toward the entrance.

_…the boy can wait…_

"Curse you," I said. "Start making some sense."

_You'll be killed if you don't get far away from this place! Does that make enough sense for you?_

I paused. The voice had come with vigour that time. I glanced around me and stopped walking. The phantom flames were back, and now they seemed almost solid. I could hear the screams, and behind it all, a kind of…

…crazed laughter?

_Get out, now! He's almost here!_

A sudden adrenaline rush took hold of me and I raced for the Guild entrance. I threw the doors open and ran, not caring how ridiculous I looked.

The sun was gone, concealed by thick, grey clouds that threw down the rain in sheets. Thunder roared in the distance.

But just outside the Guild, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at the man before me. I felt I should know him, but I couldn't remember ever seeing him before. He wore a strange white mask that covered all of his face save his eyes. And he was staring at me with a gaze that bored directly through my soul and froze everything inside me. Then I realized what that feeling was.

Terror. A terror so whole, so complete, that it held me immobile.

Slowly, deliberately, he raised one hand, the open palm directed toward me. I still couldn't move.

"Lovely day, isn't it?" the man said. I could sense the Will energy gathering around that single hand. "Not like all the distasteful sun we've been getting lately."

He slowly closed the hand into a fist. For an instant I felt a terrible crushing pressure all around me, but only for an instant. Then there was a brilliant flash of lightning directly where the man stood, the pressure was gone, and the man began to scream, clutching at his hand.

_Run, you fool! Even that won't stop him for long!_

So I did. I didn't look back, but I had a distinct feeling that I was _not_ being pursued. Something told me that the strange man wasn't after me in particular.

And once again I asked myself: What was I supposed to do now?


End file.
